Poll: SCOTUS favorability plummets

The Supreme Court’s favorability rating has plummeted to a 25-year low, with Americans on both sides of the aisle demonstrating historically negative views of the high court, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Barely more than half of those polled, 52 percent, have a favorable opinion of SCOTUS, a Pew Research Center survey found — the lowest figure in the history of the poll, which began in 1987, and a steep drop from a high of 80 percent in 1994.

Meanwhile, a little less than a third of the public, 29 percent, said they have an unfavorable view of the institution — just one percentage point short of the highest negative rating ever, in 2005.

The relatively low favorability ratings could be found across party lines: 56 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of independents said they have a positive view of the court.

The survey also found that opponents and supporters of the Affordable Care Act hold similar views: 52 percent of proponents and 55 percent of opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care law said they have a positive view of the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the law earlier this year.

In a previous Pew poll, 32 percent of Democrats said their opinion of the court became less favorable because of the hearings, while 16 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans said the same.